Posted inArcimoto

Arcimoto’s current financial situation: facts and my opinion

I'm an early Arcimoto backer with an early pre-order reservation number of #129. There's a lot that I like about the company's effort to design, manufacture, and sell an innovative electric three-wheeled motorcycle, which they call a FUV (Fun Utility Vehicle). But there's also a lot to be wary about. Notably, initial purchasers of the FUV have to make a bet on two things: (1) the quality of the final design of the FUV that will be used in retail sales (the design isn't finalized yet), and (2) the ability of Arcimoto, a start-up company, to stay in business through…
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Posted inSalem

Salem Weekly closes down. Sad day for our town.

Today, being a subscriber to Salem Weekly, I got a letter from our alternative newspaper that said the paper is being closed down, effectively immediately. I'll share my thoughts about this following the letter. Download Salem Weekly letter I feel a sense of loss, yet also thankfulness. A.P. Walther, who I assume wrote this letter, has been the tireless force that's kept Salem Weekly up and running since its birth in April 2003 as a monthly. Wikipedia describes the origins of the paper. I remember with fondness the Coffee House Cafe, a marvelously funky and welcoming place. The Salem Monthly traces…
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Posted inHealth

Shingrix gave my wife and I bad side effects. Still way better than shingles, though.

Getting shingles isn't fun, to put it mildly.  Shingles, also known as herpes zoster, is a painful skin rash caused by reactivation of the varicella zoster virus (the same virus that causes chickenpox). ...Generally, people only develop shingles once, although it is possible to get shingles more than once. Shingles may lead to long-term complications such as debilitating pain that lasts for months or even years. In rare cases, serious, long-term eye or hearing issues can occur. My wife, Laurel, and I are 69 and 70, respectively. We'd gotten the original Shingles vaccine, Zostavax, but we wanted to get the new and…
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Posted inHealth

City Club talk about opioids both enlightening and disturbing

We're all addicted to something. Coffee. Video games. TV. Golf. Travel. Whatever. But usually our addictions aren't so intense as to wreck our lives. And rarely are they fatal. Opioids, though, are both addictive and highly dangerous. They can do good, when used correctly. They also do a lot of harm, when used incorrectly. Last Friday a Salem City Club talk, "The Opioid Epidemic: How We Got Here and the Way Forward," both fascinated me with facts I hadn't been aware of before, and depressed me with fairly familiar statistics about how opioids are ravaging our country.  Coelho and Holton…
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Posted inArcimoto

Be wary of Arcimoto’s new last-minute stock offering

In general I've been supportive of Arcimoto's attempt to design and market an electric three-wheeled motorcycle, which they call the FUV, Fun Utility Vehicle. It does indeed look like fun, but this doesn't take away from the fact that the company is on shaky financial ground. (You can see my previous posts about this effort by clicking on the Arcimoto category in the right sidebar. I have an early pre-order number of #129, so I've been following Arcimoto for quite a while.) But yesterday Arcimoto did something that strikes me as ethically dubious -- a new last-minute stock offering announced…
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Posted inTai Chi

Tai Chi actually is good for self-defense (just not against MMA fighters)

Recently TIME magazine had a story about how a Chinese MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter, Xu Xiaodong, beat up Wei Lei, a Kung Fu master in the discipline of Tai Chi, in about 10 seconds.  It doesn't take long to watch the thoroughly one-sided fight. Reading the story, "Meet the Chinese MMA Fighter Taking on the Grandmasters of Kung Fu," will require a lot more time. Nonetheless, about eleven years ago I wrote a blog post that I still stand by, "Tai Chi as a kick-ass martial art." I wrote that post after I'd been studying Tai Chi for three years,…
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Posted inArcimoto

Arcimoto owes prospective buyers answers to key questions

Arcimoto is a company based in Eugene, Oregon that has been working on the design and production of a three-wheeled electric motorcycle since its founding in November 2007. I plunked down a $100 pre-order deposit in October 2015, so I've got a low reservation number: #129. I'm still trying to decide whether to buy an Arcimoto. I like the concept -- a fun to drive electric motorcycle with two heated seats, a windshield, seat belts, rollover protection, and other options yet to be revealed by Arcimoto.  But I've got unanswered questions that, hopefully, will be answered by the time I…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Good news for Dems in my daughter’s Orange County report

Along with other progressives, I'm trying to tread a middle way between undue optimism and excessive pessimism regarding tomorrow's Super Duper Important midterm election.  But after getting a politically-oriented phone call this evening from my daughter Celeste, who lives in Orange County, California (Laguna Niguel, to be exact), I'm tilting more to the side of "Democrats could have a great day on Tuesday."  Celeste has been interested in politics, but until this year I wouldn't call her an activist. Tonight, though, she excitedly told me that last weekend she did her first-ever canvassing -- for Harley Rouda, a Democrat who…
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